


The World is Ugly (but you're beautiful to me)

by transoberyn



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bullying, M/M, Trans Male Character, Unsafe Binding Techniques
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transoberyn/pseuds/transoberyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since he was a freshman, Jack had always been fascinated by the boy with the crutch.<br/>(high school au where pretty much everyone who isn't an asshole is trans)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World is Ugly (but you're beautiful to me)

**Author's Note:**

> the crutchie/jack tag is disgracefully empty, so i decided to add my own contribution. just so y'all know, when picturing the characters, imagine the original broadway cast for most of them, but the spot conlon from the movie. believe me, i love tommy bracco as much as the next fansie, but i like movie spot's aesthetic better than musical spot's. let me know if you spot any typos! (also, let me know if i should tag anything that hasn't already been tagged)

There was the sound of muffled voices from inside the boy’s bathroom. This was a common occurrence, given that you know, it was a _bathroom_ in a _school_. But this time was different. The voices were loud and mocking, accompanied by the sound of someone crying. Jack hesitated outside the door for a second, then pushed it open to reveal a horrifying scene.

Oscar and Morris Delancey were standing over a crumpled figure on the bathroom floor, taking turns kicking whatever poor soul they’d decided to torment today. Jack immediately ran over and grabbed both of their shoulders, pulling them away from their victim.

“He-” Morris started to protest, before recognizing the football team’s captain and wisely shutting his mouth.

Oscar opened his mouth as if to give an excuse for what they were doing, but Jack shot him a warning look.

“I’ve given you one warning about this typa thing before. If I catch you doin’ it one more time, don’t think I won’t report it to the coach, you hear me?” Jack looked from brother to brother, internally seething at the fake guilt he saw on each of their faces. Both nodded furiously, and he shoved them toward the door. “Now get out; I’m tired of lookin’ at your ugly mugs.”

The Delancey brothers quickly exited the bathroom, and Jack looked down at the sorry pile of oversized clothing on the floor.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, carefully reaching over and placing a hand gently on about where he thought the person’s shoulder was.

A blond head slowly emerged from where it had been contracted into an oversized flannel shirt, sheltering it as best as could be managed from the beating that had been delivered to the rest of the body. Jack crouched down to get a better look at the person’s face and swore. Even through a black eye and a heavily swollen cheek, he was easily recognizable: the boy with the crutch.

Since he was a freshman, Jack had always been fascinated by the boy with the crutch. The first time he had noticed him, the boy had been limping his way into the school at orientation. Everyone else had had at least one parent with them; this boy was alone. Just like Jack. Burdened as he was with a giant backpack and a grocery bag stuffed with various school supplies in the hand he wasn’t using to operate his crutch, the boy still seemed thrilled to be there (Jack had been less than thrilled at the prospect of school starting again, and had walked around the entire time with a scowl on his face).   
When all the other boys started rising in height as their voices dropped, the boy with the crutch didn’t change much at all. Just like Jack (until Jack found Spot, who dealt in things other than just weed).

The boy with the crutch sat alone in the library at lunch. He read until the bell rang to go to sixth period, barely eating his sloppily made peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the space between the first and last page of the book he was reading that day (Jack knew; he had had to spend a week of his lunch period in the library finishing up a project for English sophomore year. The boy with the crutch came in with a different book each day, and no matter what the size of the book, he always finished it within the span of one day).

The thing that had Jack so fascinated was the fact that, despite seemingly not having any friends, the boy with the crutch walked around every day with a smile on his face and a skip in his limp. Jack just couldn’t understand the unbridled optimism practically pouring from someone who obviously had a horrible lot in life. The boy with the crutch was a. probably an orphan like Jack, b. had no friends, c. had to walk around using an old wooden crutch for support, d. was apparently horribly bullied, and e. was probably in the same gender boat as Jack, but still managed to bake cookies for Ms. Larkin on her birthday and be a generally cheerful person. Human nature mystified Jack sometimes.

This was the first time Jack had seen the boy with the crutch express an emotion other than happiness or indifference. There were tears pouring from his eyes, he was shaking, and appeared to be having a hard time breathing.

“Okay, okay, are you having trouble breathing because you’re having a panic attack, or because of other reasons? Tap my arm once for option A and twice for option B,” Jack said, praying for option A. Panic attacks, he could deal with. Asthma attacks or questionable binding techniques? Not his favorite thing in the world. To Jack’s dismay, his arm was tapped twice by an unsteady hand.

“Okay, now I’m going to have to guess. Tap once for yes, twice for no. Asthma?”

Two taps.

“Uh… lung cancer?”

Two taps, accompanied by a hitch in the boy’s steady escalating breathing, as if he was attempting to laugh.

“Allergic reaction?” Jack said with increasing desperation, wracking his brain for anything other than what his mind had immediately jumped to.

Two taps.

Finally, Jack had to acquiesce.

“...D’ya bind with Ace bandages?”

There was a long pause, followed by a single tentative tap on Jack’s arm.

“Fuck’s sake.”

Jack sighed and picked up the boy, carrying him into the stall that mysteriously didn’t have a toilet in it (it was referred to by the vast majority of the school’s population as ‘The Sex Stall’). He set the boy down gently on the floor, and turned to latch the door of the stall. Turning around, he took a step toward the boy, who immediately flinched back, despite rapidly turning a color that people who were breathing normally usually didn’t. Jack rolled his eyes and took another step, and the boy began shaking his head rapidly from side to side.

“It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. I just need to fix your binding so it isn’t strangling you anymore,” Jack said soothingly, putting out one of his hands in a placating gesture as he shrugged off his backpack and searched for the extra binder he kept in there in case of emergencies.

The boy continued making quiet noises of protest, until Jack decided to do what had to be done. Jack whipped his shirt off. The boy’s breathing completely stopped for a second, before returning to the labored wheezing from before.

Jack’s binder was very discreet; it looked like an undershirt, and combined with his hard-earned muscle that had been aided by his illegal testosterone injections, Jack was completely able to pass even in just his binder. Thus, another layer had to come off before the boy would trust him. Jack sighed wearily and grabbed his binder where it ended at his waist and pulled up. In one swift, fluid movement, Jack was topless in front of a completely flabbergasted boy.

Jack had been able to stave off the majority of the wrong kind of puberty with the help of Spot, but it had still left its mark. His boobs were small, but still noticeable without a binder. Any and all traces of other types of curvature, however, had been erased by hours upon hours in the gym.

“Wha?” The boy made his first attempt at talking since the beginning of the encounter, his voice choking out from heavily constricted lungs.

Jack crossed his arms in front of his chest self-consciously.

“Will you let me help you now?”

There was a hesitant nod from the boy, and Jack sighed in relief and pulled his binder back on. He grabbed the extra binder from on top of his backpack, and crouched down in front of the boy. Jack started unbuttoning the boy’s flannel shirt, grimacing when he saw the tightly bound bandages encircling the top half of the boy’s torso. He slipped the shirt completely off, then fumbled around on the boy’s back until he found the clip that was holding the bandage in place. Jack quickly detached the clip, and unwound the bandage as fast as he could.

The boy took in a heaving breath as Jack let out a sigh of relief; it would probably be a tight fit, but the boy would be able to wear Jack’s spare binder. The boy tensed up when he felt gentle hands on his sides.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, eyeing Jack warily.

“Checking your ribs for damage, asshole. You’re already bruised to hell and back; I wouldn’t be surprised if you had at least one cracked rib,” Jack said, gently pressing down on the boy’s ribs and nodding in satisfaction when he didn’t feel any obvious swelling. “Does it hurt when you breath, now that I’ve taken off your binding?”

“No,” the boy replied, wincing as Jack’s fingers pressed on a Delancey-induced bruise.

“Oh yeah, what’s your name? Seeing as I’m kind of feeling you up right now, I think that would probably be good information to know,” Jack asked, grinning when the boy blushed. “I’m Jack, by the way.”

“Believe me, I know who you are,” the boy said with a wry smile. “As for my name… Just call me Crutchie. It’s the nickname they’ve given me back at my foster home, and it’s better than my birthname, so…”

“I feel your pain, man. Jack is definitely a far sight different from Frances, lemme tell you. Okay, seeing as you don’t appear to have any cracked or broken ribs, try this on for size,” Jack said, holding out the extra binder for Crutchie to take.

Crutchie took the binder and pulled it over his head, wincing as his boobs were crushed weirdly to one side at first.

“Yeah, you gotta rearrange ‘em a bit before you feel completely comfortable. Can I…?” Jack motioned vaguely to Crutchie’s somewhat lopsided chest.

“Yeah, sure,” Crutchie replied, blushing and looking to the side.

Jack reached forward and gently rearranged the binder and its contents until Crutchie’s chest was almost completely flat.

“There. You’ll get used to doing it yourself eventually, but it’s always nice to have someone help you the first couple of times.” Jack smiled reassuringly. He picked Crutchie’s shirt off of the floor and offered it to him, and Crutchie gratefully shrugged it back on and buttoned it up.

“D’you know where your crutch ended up in all of that?” Jack asked, unlatching the stall door and looking around the bathroom.

“I think they tossed it down the hall before they dragged me in here,” Crutchie said, trying and failing to stand up on his own.

“Bastards. One day I’m gonna give those two fucktrucks what they deserve, and believe me; it’s gonna be a lot worse than a black eye and some bruised ribs,” Jack muttered, rushing back into the stall and shrugging both of their backpacks on one shoulder before helping Crutchie back to his feet. “C’mon, we’ll pick it up on the way to the nurse’s office.”

“W-what?” Crutchie looked confused and slightly alarmed.

“Don’t give me that. I’m getting you to the nurse’s office, and then I’m taking you to see an old friend of mine. I dunno if you’ve heard of Spot Conlon before, but…” Jack looked over at Crutchie to gauge his reaction.

“Spot Conlon? As in, the Spot Conlon? The one who got suspended because he offered to sell the principal weed, then actually pulled a bag of weed out in the middle of the hallway?”

“The one and only,” Jack replied, grinning. “Let’s just say that weed isn’t the only semi-illegal thing he sells at a discount to his friends. Also, I could probably get him to put out a hit order on the Delanceys if you wanted me to.”

“Why are you helping me so much?” Crutchie asked, his eyes wide.

“People like you and me, we gotta look out for each other. ‘Sides, you’re a lot cuter without bruises all over that mug a’ yours.” Jack winked at Crutchie, smirking when he blushed.

Jack was very much looking forward to learning more about the boy with the crutch.


End file.
